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John Watson spent a lot of time staring at his thin red thread. It wrapped so perfectly around his left ring finger before cutting through the air and disappearing past his bedroom window. Or shooting off through the trees at the park. Or through the wall at school. But he only stared when others couldn’t see.
It wasn’t that John was afraid of his thread. In fact, he asked his mother as much about the threads as he could, and hung onto every word, committing it to memory. There was a lot for John to learn about these threads, especially when he was younger.
They connect you to the person you’re meant to be with.
They cannot be broken.
Anyone, absolutely anyone, can be on the other side of your thread. And they could be from anywhere.
Sometimes, some very sad times, a person never gets to see who they are connected to.
When John learned that a thread could turn from red to black, he knew that he had to meet his connected as soon as possible, just in case. After school he would sometimes ditch his older sister Harry and say he was going to his friend’s house to play video games. But in reality, he would chase after this thread through the small town of Sutton to see if he could find who was on the other end. Usually when John started to feel hungry, he would give up and return home, but sometimes he would stay out until long after the sun went down, which would certainly end up in a grounding. In the back of his ten-year-old mind he knew he probably wasn’t going to find the person on the end, but he always felt adventurous when he was following his outstretched arm in the general northern direction his thread always seemed to point.
When John turned fifteen, Harry found Clara and he never heard the end of it. Harry was twenty and thought she knew everything. She thought that finding her connected meant her life was sorted, even though she was barely scraping through university and was picking up her father’s habit of drinking. Clara was very nice, though, and John got along with her well enough that he could put up with Harry’s gushing. He was happy for Harry, really, and it only made him more determined to find his connected.
One day in the spring after he turned sixteen, John took the train to London, figuring that was as good a place as any to start looking. When he found himself standing in front of the Anteros statue staring at his thread still pointing due North, he feared his connected was further away than he’d imagined. What if he had to go to Scotland? Or even the Arctic? That was a thought! He would do it, though, John told himself as he stood in front of the winged memorial. He would go as far as he had to.
He figured he might as well see London since he was there. John had always thought about moving to London when he was finished with school and living on his own. He had never actually been, except once when he was four, when his mum had taken him and Harry away for the weekend while his father got rather intimately acquainted with a bottle of Gordon’s. Everything was much bigger than he had remembered, dirtier, more beautiful. People were milling about, paying no one else any mind, rushing to work, off on a date. It was all fantastic.
He spent most of the day walking. He saw Ben, the Eye, Parliament; he even found a blue police box and laughed quietly to himself while wishing he had a camera. He visited St. Bart’s hospital, somewhere he was looking to attend after sixth form. John had decided he wanted to be a doctor after helping patch up a friend’s rugby injury and being forced to care for his father once his mother left.
John spent so much time looking around London that he hadn’t realised his thread had traveled West, then South, then a bit East. He finally noticed the change in direction when he left a souvenir shop with a shirt for Harry and a hat for Clara and he took to the pavement at a run, darting past pedestrians and skirting through a crossroads just as the lights changed. His connected could be anywhere, but he’d be damned if he was going to let that stop him from running across London to find her. Or him.
Finding his connected proved more difficult than he imagined. John found himself changing direction about every ten minutes, and couldn’t fathom what the person on the other end was doing running around the streets of London. He ran into people, was nearly flattened by a bus, and almost angered the wrong sort of stray dog as he chased his thread. The thread stopped moving direction for a while, and John almost thought he’d reached the end but saw it heading towards the direction of Kings Cross just as he rounded the corner of a public swimming pool building.
Do they just not see their thread? John thought to himself as he raced towards the station, hoping to catch whoever was on the other end before they boarded their train. After actually managing to piss off another dog, who was luckily on a leash, John bolted through the entrance of Kings Cross just as his thread was beginning to move North.
“Oh, wonderful.” John leaned against the wall for a bit to catch his breath. Do they just not care? We were right here. We could have... Maybe they didn’t notice. They were moving around an awful lot. When John was rested, he purchased a ticket for Sutton and headed home. He wouldn’t sleep well for two weeks.
After John finished school, he attended The University of London at St. Bart’s and the London School of Medicine. There he met Mike Stamford, and the two of them joined a local rugby league together and quickly became fast friends. John was in top form at Bart’s. He favoured studying over partying, and his time not on the rugby pitch was spent in the library with his nose in a book. John almost felt that if he worked hard and did well in school, maybe... maybe him not having found his connected wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He did, however, continue to stare at his thread every night. He kept wondering if his connected would come to London again.
If he or she did, John wouldn’t let them get away so easily again.
Harry and Clara married soon after John started school. They were happy, it seemed to John, and he was happy for them. It had him thinking, however, about what he wanted from his life. Did he want to settle down? Did he want to go chasing across England to find his connected, or wait till they found each other? Did he want to focus on the other opportunities before him, such as a military career or specialising?
The rest of uni was a blur. Study groups meshed with rugby practice meshed with the occasional and hesitant night out at the pub meshed with getting mixed up in fights between Clara and Harry. John didn’t know how the last one happened, but it did several times. Once, it even ended with Harry crashing at John’s flat for a week to sort things out. His strict no booze policy specifically created for Harry was of course ignored by its intended and she spent most of her visit incoherent.
“If you would just put down the bottle...” John pleaded with his sister, who was in the process of pouring another glass of whisky. Harry could down the hardest like it was tea, it seemed sometimes. “This...this is why Clara kicked you out.” Harry yelled at him that she left of her own accord and John just shook his head, muttering an empty affirmative.
John forced Harry back home after six days, but Harry and Clara’s relationship didn’t get much better. By the time John had graduated, Harry had driven away nearly everyone who wasn’t family. He felt for Clara, he really did. John liked Clara, and knew she deserved better than the way Harry was treating her. But divorce between connected’s was still a little taboo. Clara didn’t know what to do, and John, well, John didn’t want to be the one stuck taking care of Harry if Clara left. And he knew she would, in time.
After a few years of residency, still at Barts, and with no break from getting stuck in the middle of Harry and Clara’s fights, John was desperate to get away from it all. He knew there was one place, at least, he could still use his medical practice to help people while escaping from his own life, from reality.
The army.
It’s a shame no one told John just how cruel reality in the army would be.
It started out simple enough. ATR was as he expected, grueling but nothing he couldn’t handle. There he met Bill Murray, whom everyone would poke fun of for being named like the film star, and who was a nurse and was with John for most of his medical training. John also met several others that would join him in the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers when training finished, such as Wilfred ‘Wilf’ Wood and Derek Kinne.
Their first few tours were lacking in action, and consisted of them working various jobs on base or escorting other regiments from one zone to another. After about five years, however, they were paired with the 1st Bangalore Pioneers, one of the last remaining regiments of the British Indian Army. It was a bit unorthodox, pairing these two up in a place like Afghanistan, but they meshed fairly well. The Pioneers were lead by Brigadier Jase Pike, a large, intimidating man with no hair, and Colonel Sebastian Moran, who was a small man and a sharp shot.
About a year into their partnership the two regiments were stationed in Sangin, a remote district of Helmand. It was a dangerous part of Afghanistan, and the insurgent presence had gone from occupying against the Afghan government’s wishes to kidnappings, bombings, murders, and raids. The Fusiliers and the Pioneers were supposed to quell the violence going on.
But the insurgents were waiting for them when they arrived. As soon as they rolled into the trenches, the Fusiliers and the Pioneers were fighting to survive. Something had gone wrong, something had gone terribly wrong. The men they were fighting against seemed to know their every move. Comms must have been hacked and transmissions intercepted, John thought to himself as he and Murray bolted to a hole to set up the medical supplies that were already needed. It was raining hellfire. All that seemed to be missing was the brimstone. Kinne was on the ground above and it looked like his left foot was twisted around the wrong way with shrapnel in it. But the Colonel in John’s hands was currently in danger of bleeding out, and much higher on his priority list.
“C’mon, Moran. Hang in there. If you quit on me now, your Brigadier will have my head. And he’s a scary man.” Moran just gritted his teeth as John wiped an iodine covered rag over the hole in his side. “Alright. Alright. C’mon. This is gonna hurt. Nothing like that bullet did, though.” John flushed the wound, a through and through that just barely seemed to miss any vital organs, with a mixture of water and bacitracin. The Colonel bit his blood-drenched jacket sleeve to keep from screaming. Some quick suturing that would most certainly need to be redone in hospital, and a rush bandage job, and John was on his way to drag Kinne to his little set up in the hole.
They were ten feet out when he heard his name being called through the tall grass. That’ll be Wilf, John thought, pausing only to turn and lift a hand to indicate he’d heard. Wilf had a head wound, but those always looked worse than they were. Nothing a bandage wouldn’t cover. He motioned for him to keep running, get out of the line of fire. C’mon Wilf, you’re target practice out there.
It happened in slow motion. John was turned, lowering himself into the hole after Kinne and facing the action, the destruction. Bullets and shells were screaming past everyone. Wilf was ducked down, trying to minimise himself as a target. But John and Wilf both saw the man in the grass at the same time. They both saw the artillery shell headed towards the unsuspecting soldier. Wilf’s eyes met John’s one last time, and his face had a determined, almost apologetic look on it, before he was diving on the ground, knocking the soldier, a man called Jameson from their own regiment, out of the blast range. Wilf had just enough time to close his eyes and lay his head back in resignation before the shell exploded in a rain of sand and grass and fire.
“WILF! NO, WILF! Dammit!” And it took Murray and someone from the Pioneers to drag John back down to the hole. Kinne was going to lose his foot if he didn’t act fast. John needed to focus. Focus. Wilf was gone. He couldn’t do anything about that. But he could save Kinne. He could protect the wounded. Focus.
He wasn’t mentally present while he extracted the shrapnel, set Kinne’s foot, cleaned, and bandaged the wound. His skin felt numb, his insides on fire. If he were any other man, his hands would be shaking. Wilf’s face kept burning itself into the back of his eyelids every time he blinked. His instant resignation to do what he needed to do. Not a second thought. Wilf, you bastard. Some poor girl back home, Dana, had just had to watch her thread go abruptly from a warm red to a harsh black. John would tell her what Wilf did. He would explain it all in a letter, Wilf’s heroism.
A shell landing six feet to the left of the hole the medics were in tore John back to reality. This ambush was getting nasty. Nastier. He could hear enemy chatter getting closer to the hole. Of course. Take the wounded. They make for better prisoners. You can dangle them in front of cameras for your purpose and then claim they died from their wounds after you shoot them in between the eyes.
Well, not on John Watson’s watch. Just a look between him, Murray, and the few Pioneers who could stand and shoot and they were scrambling for the edge of the hole with their weapons, aiming for anyone who wasn’t British. Two of the Pioneers went down within three minutes. Murray stopped to help them, leaving Watson and only two others defending the hole. Not good enough.
The insurgents came in from behind, through the breach in the fire. There had to be only eight of them, but since most of the soldiers around were already injured, John felt more than outnumbered. He watched as the insurgents went straight for Kinne and Moran. His insides were still on fire and were fast turning to rage. John had already lost one friend, he wasn’t going to lose another. He dropped the rifle he’d been carrying, pulled the Browning from his belt, and rammed the enemy soldier that had just placed a gun to Kinne’s head. John pinned the soldier on the ground and placed a bullet through his chest. When he turned, John saw Moran being pulled from the hole and didn’t think. He just ran. He scaled the ladder and charged after them, releasing round two, three, four from his pistol. He could hear Murray yelling behind him.
“Sebastian!” They were getting farther. His leg. Why was his leg hurting? Am I hit? Fuck. Slowing me down. The falter was all it took. The hitch in John’s step distracted him enough for the kidnappers to take the chance and shoot.
John Watson’s world erupted in an explosion of fire and blood and rage. He could barely register Murray screaming his name as he fell to the ground feeling like his whole left side had been blown off.
When he awoke, John was surprised to find he was in pain. He didn’t think you could feel pain in the afterlife. Maybe it was residual. Maybe when he opened his eyes and made his mind realise where he was it would go away.
The blinding white lights that greeted him above almost hurt as much as his shoulder and leg did.
“Guess I’m not dead.” John shut his eyes once more, spots and stars dancing behind his eyelids.
“Don’t sound too disappointed, Johnny boy!” Murray. Well, nice to know he made it out alright too.
“Kinne make it?” John was stalling. He didn’t want to look at his left side. He didn’t want to feel his left side. Was it even still there? I bet I’m missing a bloody arm.
“Oh, could anything take Kinne out? Foot’s going to be good as new thanks to you, Johnny.” John could feel Murray’s hand rumpling his hair and decided to give opening his eyes another go.
Just a crack, then a few awkward blinks, and then he forced his eyes to stay open and acclimate to the light. After a moment John turned to look at Murray.
“Y’look like shite.” Murray had bags under his eyes that seemed to take up his whole face. His hair needed washing, and somehow he’d received a cut along his jaw that was starting to heal already. “How long have I been out?”
“Well you don’t look too spiffy yourself, darling,” Murray chuckled. “About a week. You lost a bunch of blood. Left you for dead, they did. Didn’t think you were gonna make it, honestly. I think Wilf woulda taken you out the minute you got to the afterlife if you hadn’t.” His face dropped a bit at the mention of Wilf, as did John’s. He still needed to write that letter.
“My arm?” John still didn’t want to look. He could see the bandages around his shoulder in his peripheral, but they could be wrapped around a stump for all he knew. Or maybe it was still there and he couldn’t move it anymore and it was just a useless limb.
“Will be right as rain. Looked like it had been blown clean off, to tell you the truth. But just a through and through in your shoulder was all it was.” John finally turned his head to look at the bandages. His arm was numb, but that was most likely from the pain killers. He tried to wiggle his fingers, and watched as they waved back at him. “You’ll have a nasty scar, but you know how girls feel about battle wounds, eh?” John rolled his eyes, but offered Murray an empty smile in return.
John was in the hospital another week. After he wrote the letter to Wilf’s girl, explaining his actions fully and how Wilf was a true hero, John spent most of his time staring at his thread. It really hadn’t moved all that much during John’s time in Afghanistan. He was too disoriented to think about the proper angle and where it was pointed at, but he liked to think maybe it was towards London. John didn’t know what he would do if he met his connected now, however. He had started having nightmares. His shoulder was healing but the doctors couldn’t find an explanation for the leg. Aside from Murray or Kinne, John didn’t want to talk to anyone. He couldn’t stop thinking about Wilf or Moran. They were lost, gone. He should have been lost too.
A letter that was delivered the day before he was to be discharged detailed what he would do when he returned home. He was going to be given honourable discharge, a small pension, and was set up with a weekly appointment with a therapist. John gave a bitter smile when he read that. Great. What makes the Army think I’m going to talk to a therapist in London if I won’t talk to anyone here?
John was shipped home with Murray, Kinne, and a few others who had been wounded in battle. When they arrived, it was early morning in London. Harry had taken the liberty of finding him a small flat for when he got back, and he was suspicious of her behaviour. After a bit of prodding while they were gathering his few possessions from storage, Harry revealed that she and Clara had officially split. When Harry had heard John was shot and in critical condition, she went on a bender, and broke a vase. Clara had told her that it was the last straw, and she was leaving. Harry thought that maybe cleaning herself up would bring Clara back. John personally wondered just how long his sister would stay clean. This was not a good start to his homecoming.
When John settled in after his return to London, he found he was a different man. He didn’t go out. He didn’t find any of his old mates. He didn’t make plans. He sat on his bed most of the day, or at his computer. His therapist encouraged him to write a blog, but he honestly had nothing to write about. He went to the store to buy groceries every week, and sometimes he would cut through the park if the day was nice. That was it.
At night, John would lie on his bed and look at his thread, following the path it took with his eyes. Whoever is on the other end could be in London, he thought. John could watch the thread go three hundred and sixty degrees in the span of an hour, so he had to be close to his connected. Some nights, the ex-soldier couldn’t sleep much at all because of painful, terrifying, disorienting nightmares. On these nights, John would just sit, and watch, and wonder who it could be that would go roaming around London at all hours of the day and night. The little boy he used to be was a bit sad that he didn’t try to go out and find the other end of the thread. Surely once someone has reached their thirties they should want to find their connected. Right?
The only reason John didn’t go looking for his connected was because he was broken. His shoulder had been shot to ribbons and he had a limp that his therapist wasn’t quite sure was real. He had no motivation to do anything, to meet anyone. He didn’t talk. Who would want to be around someone who couldn’t find a word to say, or was barely even able make it to Tesco each week for fear of social interaction? His connected would take one look at him and run away, probably. He wouldn’t be wanted.
John kept his military-issued handgun after leaving the service. It wasn’t legal, strictly speaking, but if he were honest with himself the law wouldn’t be an issue for very much longer.
The thought had occurred to him as he was lying in the army hospital in Afghanistan. Of course it did. John witnessed one of his best mates from ATR getting blown to smithereens, and was shot while unsuccessfully trying to protect a fellow soldier from being captured. The bullet had ripped a hole the size of an orange through the back of his shoulder, with the front not looking any better, and for some reason John couldn’t figure out his leg ached with a phantom pain that had nothing to do with any sort of real injury. He knew he couldn’t stay in Afghanistan with such severe problems, but going home either meant taking care of Harry and her drinking or living by himself. He had joined the army to escape the first option, and now that he was being sent home he couldn’t really afford the second.
So when John left, he kept his gun. Just in case.
Each night he would jolt awake screaming and twisted in his sheets, and each time when he lay back down he would look towards the top drawer of his desk before turning his eyes onto his left hand and following the movement of his thread. Sometimes he felt sorry for his connected, felt bad for what he was considering, but then he would think to himself that it was probably better he or she would never meet the broken ex-army doctor who couldn’t be fixed.
Christmas was a sad excuse for a holiday that year. He visited Harry, who wasn’t doing so well since her most recent separation with Clara, and made sure to throw out any booze he could find in her apartment. John and Harry had never got on very well, but their relationship only went downhill once his sister picked up his father’s old drinking habits while she was in uni. He’d spent the years before St. Bart’s taking care of his father; he didn’t want to be Harry’s nurse too. They spent the New Year together as well, but that proved more than he could handle once Harry got her hands on a bottle of gin.
After New Years, John didn’t know what to do. The holidays were out of the way and Harry would be preoccupied with alcohol for the next good month or two, until she would try to turn sober again for three weeks out of guilt. It was always the same cycle. He tried to find a job, but he had no motivation to follow up on any of the calls he’d received for interviews. He still hadn’t called any of his old mates to tell them he’d come back.
John had begun noticing stories in the paper about serial suicides going on, and how some reporters thought they might be murders. Which were they – suicides or murders? If they were suicides, those people were smart. Poison would be a nice way to go. A lot cleaner than a bullet in the brain. No blood stains on the carpet. John’s nonchalance thinking about suicide would have worried him, but the idea had been in the back of his mind for months. It was no surprise he would start thinking about it more when these cases began showing up during his daily routine of reading the paper.
Routine. John’s life had become very routine. Having nightmares, going to his therapist, going to the shops, staring at his blog or the paper for hours on end. His world was turning into shades of grey and he didn’t know how to stop it. The only colour seemed to be the brown sand and red blood that he would see every night before his eyes opened and a scream ripped through his chest.
What has my life become? He would think to himself as images of bullets and colourful vials with skulls on them danced through his mind. It’s not really much of a life anymore at all.
Life has a funny way of proving to people their deepest assumptions, whether they’re actually true or not. John’s grey world was abruptly interrupted with screaming red in the form of Harry Watson begging him to help her over the phone. Clara had sent over divorce papers two days before and was to pick them up that afternoon. Harry, true to form, had rather decided she’d much prefer to get friendly with a bottle of Jameson.
“No, Harry! This is the last time I will tell you. I am not your keeper.” John was angry, the most he’d been since returning from Afghanistan. “I’ve tried to help you in the past, but you’re worse than dad. You never listen to any reason, and I have my own problems to deal with.” It took all he had to not fling the phone out his window. “I can’t keep taking care of you!” That’s what Clara was for, and you’ve gone run her off. It’s your own fault.
“John, John please. This is the last time, I swear. Just-” Her words were slurred and she was speaking too loudly over the phone. Harry had hit a low point.
“No! It’s half three and you’re pissed! I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d finished the entire bottle by now.” He couldn’t take it. John hung up the phone to Harry beginning to scream at him. Why was it his job to take care of her? Why did she have to make him feel like a terrible person when he refused to be her baby sitter? She was a grown woman, she was five years older then he was. He shouldn’t be responsible for taking care of her.
It was too much. He felt guilty for about ten different reasons, he was angry for four, and felt broken for a million more.
The action was automatic. As John stood from the stiff pre-furnished chair in his living room and crossed to his bedroom, his skin felt numb, while his insides were on fire. His mind was fuzzy and he was developing tunnel vision. It was as if a fever had taken over his whole body. John gripped the edges of his desk and stared at the vinyl wood grain pattern for five minutes, willing the dizziness in his head to go away. His leg was on fire, and he would have ripped it off with his bare hands if he hadn't a better idea in mind that would end the pain, all of his pain, permanently.
His movement was stuttered as he reached a hand down to the top drawer and slid it open. John shuffled through the stacks of paper and dug under his laptop until his fingers found the cool metal handle of the Browning. Lifting it out of the drawer, John dropped the gun on the desk and stared at it as if it might come alive and shoot him of its own accord.
John wished it would.
He gripped the edge of the desk once more, his knuckles turning white. All he could see was the gun. The way out. The escape from his pain, from his sister, from his terrible therapist, from his nightmares, from his...life.
All it would take was a pull of that trigger. An inch of metal and then 9mm more.
John placed one hand on the gun, but it took him three more minutes before he could wrap his fingers around the handle, lift it up off the vinyl wood grain of the desk. One inch of metal and then 9mm more, and it would be over.
Harry might drink herself to death, John thought, but simply grimaced as he straightened his back. Only expediting the inevitable.
What about my connected? John lowered the gun a few inches and looked at his thread, currently making its way East. Would it even matter? They're better off not knowing me. I'm just cracked and worthless and crippled.
His hand was steady as he lifted the gun to its place. The barrel tasted like metal and fire, if such a taste existed. John's finger caressed the trigger. He'd done this before, many times. Only the target wasn't his own flesh, as it was now. He had to close his eyes. He couldn't watch it happen.
A noise from the other room. His phone.
Ignore it Watson.
Clara's ringtone. Clara wouldn't call unless...
Harry.
The gun hit the vinyl wood grain with a clatter as John rushed to the living room to grab his phone before Clara hung up.
"Clara, yes, hello. Is everything alright?"
Harry was getting into her car as Clara drove up to her house. Drunk.
"But...Why?"
To see John. To beg him to help her. Christ.
"I'll...I'll be over in twenty." The Browning can wait until tomorrow.
John stayed the night at Harry’s. He held his sister as she cried into his arms. He listened to her as she apologized endlessly about her behavior. Listened to her empty promises to stop drinking, once and for all. He and Clara took turns looking over her once she passed out in her bed. It was rough. It made John’s leg hurt. He couldn’t keep doing this any more. This is why he wanted to... Just a bump in the road. A delay. Rest stop. His escape was still waiting for him on the vinyl wood grain of his desk.
Clara was gone when he woke up around nine the next morning. John cursed himself for letting her get away first. His back hurt from the sofa, and skin still felt a little numb. He just wanted to get home. To get away. He checked on Harry, sleeping soundly in her bed, before he left, deciding to walk back as the day was nice and the park would be a good shortcut.
He didn’t plan on running into Mike Stamford. He was so lost in his thoughts, it took Mike two times calling his name out for John to turn around. Its fine. Just another delay. Coffee would be nice anyway.
John would say it was nice catching up with his old friend from school, but it wasn’t. It only reminded him of what he’d become, how he was so different from who he was when he attended Barts. Mike was still at Barts, teaching. John could do that if he wanted. He’d hate it, though.
“Staying in town till you get yourself sorted?” Well, you could put it that way.
“Can’t afford London on an army pension.” A better answer than John’s real thoughts.
“Ah, you couldn’t bear to be anywhere else. That’s not the John Watson I know.” Well, it’s been over eight years since I’ve seen you. I’ve changed.
“I’m not the John Watson you...” No. It’s too much. I can’t let him know. That would just make it harder.
“Couldn’t Harry help?” John couldn’t help but laugh. What an absurd thought.
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” Seeing as Harry was currently blacked out to the world and all its problems, John didn’t see her being much help at all.
That’s when Mike suggested a flatshare. John almost smiled. A flatshare? With him? A broken soldier who only left his apartment to take care of his drunk sister?
“Come on. Who’d want me for a flatmate?” And Mike was chuckling to himself. Why was that funny? “What?”
“You’re the second person to say that to me today.” Mike was smiling to himself like he was some sort of damn matchmaker or something.
“Who was the first?” And just like that, Mike was whisking John away to St. Barts to meet this mystery flatmate.
John couldn’t say no. Maybe this would work out? It could be the sort of distraction from his pain he was looking for. He hadn’t high hopes though. If it didn’t work out, then well, it was just another delay, wasn’t it? And he could get right back home to the Browning waiting on his desk.
Barts was different. Upgraded. Computers and machines whirring about covered in touch screens and lights. Much different than when John was a student. Mike felt the need to give John a little tour, delaying this flatmate matchmaking a bit, perhaps to build up suspense. John was antsy. He wanted to meet the guy and get on with it. It wasn’t until Mike was taking him down to one of the labs that John noticed his thread. It was straight before him, heading through the door they were about to open.
Could it...
No
But what if...
Do I want to meet this person? Here? Now? When yesterday I almost...
But Mike was herding him through the door before he could protest.
“Mike, I need to borrow your phone. Mine doesn’t have any signal down here.”
John looked for the voice, deep, curt. The man was lost in the mess of test tubes and beakers piled on the table, hidden behind a microscope. But his hand was outstretched, waiting for the phone Mike was patting himself down for.
John couldn’t miss the red thread that started in a perfect loop around the man’s ring finger, and traveled ten feet across the room to his own hand that he was now lifting up. He gasped. He couldn’t believe it. It was his connected. The glowing thread was a breach of red in the grey his world had become, and from it, colour was now seeping back into place.
The man lifted his gaze from the microscope at John’s intake of breath. His eyes traveled the ten feet of thread to rest on John’s hand, before moving up to lock gazes. He was...otherworldly. John never, not for one instance, thought he would look across to his connected and see the combination of curls and angles and cheekbones and tall that was on the end of his thread. The man was beautiful.
But it wasn’t just aesthetics. John had never thought about how much he would need to see who he was connected to. He never thought his connected would want to take a second glance at John. But the look in the man’s eerily pale eyes was unmistakable: He needed John just as much as John needed him.
John’s heart was pounding, his grip on his cane was painful. Go, he told himself. This is much better than the gun.
“John. John Watson.” And his mouth stretched into a smile of its own accord as he limped his way over to the god-like statue that was his connected. John didn’t notice Mike shuffling quietly out of the lab. He was transfixed, watching the thread shrink as the gap between him and his connected was closed; each step he took was like following a path to salvation, and for the first time in years he felt truly alive.
“Sherlock Holmes,” the man said. In the back of his mind, John thought, Sherlock, what a name. And they clasped each other’s hands, and the thin red thread between them was nothing and everything at the same time as finally, after years and years of searching, John Watson finally caught his connected. His Sherlock.